Talk:Towers of Silence

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I added three new links. Also of interest is a 2001 letter from the Karachi Parsi Anjuman at the Traditional Zoroastrian page[1], which says it has had two dakhmas without any vultures since 1956, using only the sun's rays. This has a correlation with the Mumbai Panchayat's decision to turn to solar power. And also significant of the fact that unlike other tradition's (i.e. Tibetan), which expose their dead, the vultures serve little religious significance in of themselves. Rather it is, of course, the purifying rays of the sun. Khirad 06:43, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

not quite. Birds (not specifically vultures) do have religious significance. They are specifically part of the "good creation."
and of course the "traditional" (read: orthodox, unchangeable, uncreative, unimaginative, unprogressive, white bread) faction is going to say all is well. They'd be lost otherwise.
The solar collectors don't work as touted either. They apparently "forgot" that they have that little phenomenon called the monsoon (bye bye sunshine for 4 months of the year), that for much of the rest of the year big Indian cities are blanketed by smog (Bombay being an exception), and that in India the heat desiccates rather than accelerates decomposition.
-- Fullstop 01:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

"the Iranian Zoroastrians discontinued usage of the Towers and now bury their dead in more traditional cemeteries."
This is a bizarre sentence. It says firstly that they have been doing this for thousands of years, and then says that burial is more traditional. Errr... what? Although it may be traditional for whoever wrote the sentence, it clearly isn't traditional for the Zoroastrians. Should this be changed? 88.105.254.93 20:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think (the phrase is gone now) they meant "conventional cemeteries." -- Fullstop 01:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

This article appears to identical to one on the same topic in answers.com.74.225.167.78 00:43, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Very likely since they mirror much of our content as is allowed under the GFDL.Geni 00:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the article is fine. But this is the most gruesome article I've ever read on here. Cott12 21:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

No kidding. The description is actually very toned-down. Well, as best as I could without making it sound like a walk in the park. -- Fullstop 01:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Anyway, I think it's amazing and glad it is made so clear. It makes the story of Sheriar Mundegar Irani, who watched the tower of silence for his father, leaving home at 12 make total sense. Cott12 13:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Point of view

This article is very hard to understand for someone outside the Middle East. Could someone please spell out the basics in the opening paragraphs? I will give you my understanding of what I am reading. (I expect you to correct me!)

Here goes: The Towers of the Dead are places where dead people are left, instead of burying or burning them. There is a lot of confusion about The Towers of the Dead, partly because they are used differently in Iran and in India, partly because they way they have been used over the centuries has changed, and partly because outsiders from the West have misunderstood what they are for, and partly because not enough care has been taken to identify the differences between different ways of treating the dead.

Is any of this right?

24.130.14.170 (talk) 05:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)